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Attention Span: Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life
Rediscover your ability to pay attention with this groundbreaking new approach from “the definitive expert on distraction and multitasking” (Cal Newport).
We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we're interrupted by others.
In Attention Span , psychologist Gloria Mark reveals these and more surprising results from her decades of research into how technology affects our attention. She shows how much of what we think we know is wrong, including insights such
·Why multitasking hurts rather than helps productivity
·How social media and modern entertainment amplify our short attention spans
·What drains our mental resources and how to refuel them
·The four types of attention that we experience every day and how to recognize them
While the concept of “flow” has previously been considered the ideal state of focus, Dr. Mark offers a new framework to help explain how our brains function in the digital kinetic attention. This book reveals how we can take control, not only to find more success in our careers, but also to find health and wellness in our everyday lives.
We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we're interrupted by others.
In Attention Span , psychologist Gloria Mark reveals these and more surprising results from her decades of research into how technology affects our attention. She shows how much of what we think we know is wrong, including insights such
·Why multitasking hurts rather than helps productivity
·How social media and modern entertainment amplify our short attention spans
·What drains our mental resources and how to refuel them
·The four types of attention that we experience every day and how to recognize them
While the concept of “flow” has previously been considered the ideal state of focus, Dr. Mark offers a new framework to help explain how our brains function in the digital kinetic attention. This book reveals how we can take control, not only to find more success in our careers, but also to find health and wellness in our everyday lives.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 10, 2023
675 people are currently reading
7082 people want to read
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March 19, 2023
I am annoyed that none of the top-rated reviews tell a would-be reader *anything* about this book. Though after reading it, it's a bit of mess, and I understand why someone wouldn't be inclined to read or review it.
It's a science book, but with a bit too many author-insertions/memoir for me. Like, do I care that the author is a colorectal cancer survivor or that she was pregnant in a sweltering room in Germany one day? Do I care that she had a sabbatical in NYC or in Austria? I do not. And the author says "we" too much, which is a stylistic tic that I personally hate. Not sure that I prefer my science books to be written in first-person.
The first part of the book is about attention. We have a few different types of attention, focused, rote, and boredom, and people tend to switch among them often. Since the rise of the internet, task duration has gone from about 75 seconds on average to 45 seconds on average, meaning the time you do one thing before switching to something else, and then switching back or moving on to yet another thing. And the switching takes effort and leaves unresolved cognitive tension, so after several hours of this, you are exhausted and annoyed and forgetful, and despite fluttering from task to task all day long, you are probably far less productive than you think you were.
This is the second book I've read this year that references "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe as a book believed to cause a suicide contagion in the 18th century.
Apparently studies show that people are happier in rote attention than in focused attention/flow. And that people are angry when their flow is interrupted by random popups asking them how they're feeling as they try to work. Short cuts in movies, commercials, and social media apps have become more and more commonplace, and it might be a chicken-and-egg issue why these exist, but apparently people in the current era will adjust their attention every 5 seconds or so, especially when looking at screens. (I sit here shaking my head and thinking "that's crazy," but I'll admit that I've gotten up twice already while writing this paragraph, so maybe not?)
Anyway, the bottom line is that the author believes (and studies show) that our attention is dynamic (kinetic) and ebbs and flows throughout the day, and that we need to recognize this and plan for it, and plan to use times of slower attention to do less-cognitively-challenging tasks, and use the times of focused attention to do more cognitively demanding tasks. Also to use "mindfulness and meta-awareness" to make sure we don't spend too much time on things that are unproductive. If you're not familiar with Albert Bandura, she evokes his theories. She calls all of this developing agency and self-determination in directing our attention.
All of this is good, but I am really not seeing how this will work with children or teenagers, or other people who have low impulse control. She's generally opposed to blocking apps on a phone or computer, other than making them harder to access. I personally set a couple of time blocks each day to limit my tendency for mindless scrolling, and even after a couple of months, I am *still* sometimes surprised to pick up my phone and see that it's in "work" mode. If I didn't set the mode, I doubt I'd notice that it was during a work-time block, and I consider myself to be a bit more conscientious than average.
Author is optimistic, going forward, that people will be able to develop agency in order to effectively direct and command their own attention, and that maybe to-be-developed algorithms will help people optimize their attention assets.
It's a science book, but with a bit too many author-insertions/memoir for me. Like, do I care that the author is a colorectal cancer survivor or that she was pregnant in a sweltering room in Germany one day? Do I care that she had a sabbatical in NYC or in Austria? I do not. And the author says "we" too much, which is a stylistic tic that I personally hate. Not sure that I prefer my science books to be written in first-person.
The first part of the book is about attention. We have a few different types of attention, focused, rote, and boredom, and people tend to switch among them often. Since the rise of the internet, task duration has gone from about 75 seconds on average to 45 seconds on average, meaning the time you do one thing before switching to something else, and then switching back or moving on to yet another thing. And the switching takes effort and leaves unresolved cognitive tension, so after several hours of this, you are exhausted and annoyed and forgetful, and despite fluttering from task to task all day long, you are probably far less productive than you think you were.
This is the second book I've read this year that references "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe as a book believed to cause a suicide contagion in the 18th century.
Apparently studies show that people are happier in rote attention than in focused attention/flow. And that people are angry when their flow is interrupted by random popups asking them how they're feeling as they try to work. Short cuts in movies, commercials, and social media apps have become more and more commonplace, and it might be a chicken-and-egg issue why these exist, but apparently people in the current era will adjust their attention every 5 seconds or so, especially when looking at screens. (I sit here shaking my head and thinking "that's crazy," but I'll admit that I've gotten up twice already while writing this paragraph, so maybe not?)
Anyway, the bottom line is that the author believes (and studies show) that our attention is dynamic (kinetic) and ebbs and flows throughout the day, and that we need to recognize this and plan for it, and plan to use times of slower attention to do less-cognitively-challenging tasks, and use the times of focused attention to do more cognitively demanding tasks. Also to use "mindfulness and meta-awareness" to make sure we don't spend too much time on things that are unproductive. If you're not familiar with Albert Bandura, she evokes his theories. She calls all of this developing agency and self-determination in directing our attention.
All of this is good, but I am really not seeing how this will work with children or teenagers, or other people who have low impulse control. She's generally opposed to blocking apps on a phone or computer, other than making them harder to access. I personally set a couple of time blocks each day to limit my tendency for mindless scrolling, and even after a couple of months, I am *still* sometimes surprised to pick up my phone and see that it's in "work" mode. If I didn't set the mode, I doubt I'd notice that it was during a work-time block, and I consider myself to be a bit more conscientious than average.
Author is optimistic, going forward, that people will be able to develop agency in order to effectively direct and command their own attention, and that maybe to-be-developed algorithms will help people optimize their attention assets.
March 23, 2023
Why do we feel control of life in the physical world but not the digital world?
That is a question that author and psychologist Gloria Mark posed in the introduction of the book. And this is a fundamental question that I and many others had asked ourselves in the past decade - why do we feel so overwhelmed nowadays, and how this lack of control over our digital life has reduced our control over our physical life.
This is a new book just published this year. Gloria Mark is Chancellor's professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine. She has published over 200 scientific research articles and is noted for her research on human-computer interaction and the social impact of digital media.
Reading this is part of my on-going process to regain control. I have done some parts successfully in the past year (yay!). But reading this helped me to understand the drivers and dynamics backed by science, and I feel so validated and less alone. I won’t beat myself up the umpteenth time again for not having an empty mail box at the end of the day or week – because it is impossible! According to the author, emails cause the most stress among all their study subjects! It is like a zombie - you thought you have killed it but it still returns!
In the past decade, I feel more and more fragmented at the end of the day. I have been extremely busy, pulled in all directions and constantly interrupted by various demands via email and whatsapp. And I often wonder why I cannot remember what I was busy with during the day. I also wonder how my important projects are often left to the end of the day, when I hope that I can reserve a block of time to concentrate on it – but by then, I have little mental energy to deal with it. Makes us all feel like failures right?
“Indeed, we find in the real world work, the more switches a person makes, the longer is their end-of-day assessed productivity,” said the author. “Attention shifting results in in work becoming fragmented, drains cognitive resources, is bad for productivity, and can lead to cumulative stress, which can negatively impact health.”
Yay! I feel so validated! Cognitive resources are limited!!! It is a scientific fact!
I like it that the author gives the science to back this up. She starts off each section given the background and developments of each main area she is deals with. She shows from data and research how much time we spend at the desk in the 1960s to 1980s (just over 20%) to 2019 (over 90%! This would have become worse from 2020 to 2022 with the restrictions caused by COVID-19). And how our attention span had declined from 2-3 mins in 2004 to just 40 over seconds in 2021 (median is 40 seconds - so there are some with less than 40 second attention span). How we are constantly interrupted at work (by emails, notifications) that we move from one sphere of work to another, and taking us about 2.5 spheres before we return to our original piece of work. And we take over 20 mins to settle back into that original piece of work!
This is tremendous switching costs for multi-tasking!
It certainly is a loss of productivity and causes a lot of stress. The author cited the work of Kurt Lewis and Bluma Zeigernik’s work which posit that interruptions creates tension and stress because we have an unfulfilled need (to return to complete something) and will keep worrying until we can finish the unfinished, as our natural inclination is to strive for tension reduction in all we do ("Zeigarnik Effect")
I also found it fascinating reading the forces that drive distraction – from how the internet is designed to mimic how the brain works by network association (through hyperlinks as opposed to traditional "list" or Dewey Decimal approach) and priming; how the internet is designed to make us of our natural sense of curiosity to lead us down the rabbit hold of clinking one hyperlink after another (away from our original search goal); and how much data we give to algorithms to help software designers to trap ourselves further. Content are also getting shorter and faster to capture our ever shortening attention span (think Tik Tok; quick flash on-line ads; twitter). This in turns make our attention span even shorter. So it is a chicken and egg issue! (The only time businesses make things a bit longer eventually is so that they can insert many short snippets of advertising to make money aka Tik Tok).
In movies, music videos and advertisements, each shot/frame is edited to become shorter and faster. I learned that there is even something called “chaos editing” which is a deliberate effort to capture our attention. Oh how they mess with our brains and perception - and we don't even realise it.
Alas, the problem with all these competing attention seeking efforts is that our recall rate is low, and it also wears down our cognitive resources and executive function. Which means we are less able to resist and self-regulate. This is serious! Especially for young children’s development.
However, the author says there is value in low demand high engagement rote activities – which can help us de-stress, including playing Candy Crush or going on Facebook. But the challenge is not to get sucked in.
So I think I am on the right path. I hardly use Facebook or Instagram any more. I turn off most notifications on my mobile. I silent non-important WhatsApp chat groups. I do not check my handphone first thing on waking - I meditate instead while my mind is clear. I am increasingly able to focus on reading a book for longer duration.
I am not sure how I can deal with an overflowing in-box yet...but I try to design my day to set aside time for quiet work and my key priorities (good to look at it as an “end of day emotional goal”), and take advantage of my own natural attention rhythm. I still suffer from watching too many YouTube videos – but at least many of these have some value eg on yoga, exercise, nutrition. I consider this my “Rote” activity time!
I agree with the author that besides individual effort, there is a need for effort at the organisational and societal level – so that we can make a cultural change. This would include limiting email time, limiting intrusion into personal time (supporting Right to Disconnect laws as a basic human right).
So I must remember that my cognitive resources are LIMITED, and to protect it* as it is valuable real estate. To design my lifestyle and day accordingly. Accordingly to the father of modern psychology William James, what we pay attention to becomes our lived and life experiences!*
Gloria Mark is an academic and researcher so her writing style can be a bit dry especially at the start. But keep up with it as I find the science fascinating and the history and background she sets up to give context to be rather useful.
I didn’t think that the author had a lot of concrete recommendations to cope with the distractions and digital world. For that, please read “Atomic Habits” by James Clear as I find it really works as he understands the neuroscience of cue, craving, friction and reward. Also “Make Time” by Jake Knapp and JZ (a couple of ex-Google employees who helped designed gmail and YouTube).
*From Buddhist teachings, the mind is of utmost importance and we need to protect it. That is why, one of the five precepts is not to consume intoxicants and drugs as they a) cloud our judgement, b) prime us to misbehave because we are less able to regulate (more impulsive), and c) can make us addicted. As I read this book, I realise that these consequences are exactly what the author say the science is showing that digital media does to us! So, I know there serious spiritual consequence for the mind.
That is a question that author and psychologist Gloria Mark posed in the introduction of the book. And this is a fundamental question that I and many others had asked ourselves in the past decade - why do we feel so overwhelmed nowadays, and how this lack of control over our digital life has reduced our control over our physical life.
This is a new book just published this year. Gloria Mark is Chancellor's professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine. She has published over 200 scientific research articles and is noted for her research on human-computer interaction and the social impact of digital media.
Reading this is part of my on-going process to regain control. I have done some parts successfully in the past year (yay!). But reading this helped me to understand the drivers and dynamics backed by science, and I feel so validated and less alone. I won’t beat myself up the umpteenth time again for not having an empty mail box at the end of the day or week – because it is impossible! According to the author, emails cause the most stress among all their study subjects! It is like a zombie - you thought you have killed it but it still returns!
In the past decade, I feel more and more fragmented at the end of the day. I have been extremely busy, pulled in all directions and constantly interrupted by various demands via email and whatsapp. And I often wonder why I cannot remember what I was busy with during the day. I also wonder how my important projects are often left to the end of the day, when I hope that I can reserve a block of time to concentrate on it – but by then, I have little mental energy to deal with it. Makes us all feel like failures right?
“Indeed, we find in the real world work, the more switches a person makes, the longer is their end-of-day assessed productivity,” said the author. “Attention shifting results in in work becoming fragmented, drains cognitive resources, is bad for productivity, and can lead to cumulative stress, which can negatively impact health.”
Yay! I feel so validated! Cognitive resources are limited!!! It is a scientific fact!
I like it that the author gives the science to back this up. She starts off each section given the background and developments of each main area she is deals with. She shows from data and research how much time we spend at the desk in the 1960s to 1980s (just over 20%) to 2019 (over 90%! This would have become worse from 2020 to 2022 with the restrictions caused by COVID-19). And how our attention span had declined from 2-3 mins in 2004 to just 40 over seconds in 2021 (median is 40 seconds - so there are some with less than 40 second attention span). How we are constantly interrupted at work (by emails, notifications) that we move from one sphere of work to another, and taking us about 2.5 spheres before we return to our original piece of work. And we take over 20 mins to settle back into that original piece of work!
This is tremendous switching costs for multi-tasking!
It certainly is a loss of productivity and causes a lot of stress. The author cited the work of Kurt Lewis and Bluma Zeigernik’s work which posit that interruptions creates tension and stress because we have an unfulfilled need (to return to complete something) and will keep worrying until we can finish the unfinished, as our natural inclination is to strive for tension reduction in all we do ("Zeigarnik Effect")
I also found it fascinating reading the forces that drive distraction – from how the internet is designed to mimic how the brain works by network association (through hyperlinks as opposed to traditional "list" or Dewey Decimal approach) and priming; how the internet is designed to make us of our natural sense of curiosity to lead us down the rabbit hold of clinking one hyperlink after another (away from our original search goal); and how much data we give to algorithms to help software designers to trap ourselves further. Content are also getting shorter and faster to capture our ever shortening attention span (think Tik Tok; quick flash on-line ads; twitter). This in turns make our attention span even shorter. So it is a chicken and egg issue! (The only time businesses make things a bit longer eventually is so that they can insert many short snippets of advertising to make money aka Tik Tok).
In movies, music videos and advertisements, each shot/frame is edited to become shorter and faster. I learned that there is even something called “chaos editing” which is a deliberate effort to capture our attention. Oh how they mess with our brains and perception - and we don't even realise it.
Alas, the problem with all these competing attention seeking efforts is that our recall rate is low, and it also wears down our cognitive resources and executive function. Which means we are less able to resist and self-regulate. This is serious! Especially for young children’s development.
However, the author says there is value in low demand high engagement rote activities – which can help us de-stress, including playing Candy Crush or going on Facebook. But the challenge is not to get sucked in.
So I think I am on the right path. I hardly use Facebook or Instagram any more. I turn off most notifications on my mobile. I silent non-important WhatsApp chat groups. I do not check my handphone first thing on waking - I meditate instead while my mind is clear. I am increasingly able to focus on reading a book for longer duration.
I am not sure how I can deal with an overflowing in-box yet...but I try to design my day to set aside time for quiet work and my key priorities (good to look at it as an “end of day emotional goal”), and take advantage of my own natural attention rhythm. I still suffer from watching too many YouTube videos – but at least many of these have some value eg on yoga, exercise, nutrition. I consider this my “Rote” activity time!
I agree with the author that besides individual effort, there is a need for effort at the organisational and societal level – so that we can make a cultural change. This would include limiting email time, limiting intrusion into personal time (supporting Right to Disconnect laws as a basic human right).
So I must remember that my cognitive resources are LIMITED, and to protect it* as it is valuable real estate. To design my lifestyle and day accordingly. Accordingly to the father of modern psychology William James, what we pay attention to becomes our lived and life experiences!*
Gloria Mark is an academic and researcher so her writing style can be a bit dry especially at the start. But keep up with it as I find the science fascinating and the history and background she sets up to give context to be rather useful.
I didn’t think that the author had a lot of concrete recommendations to cope with the distractions and digital world. For that, please read “Atomic Habits” by James Clear as I find it really works as he understands the neuroscience of cue, craving, friction and reward. Also “Make Time” by Jake Knapp and JZ (a couple of ex-Google employees who helped designed gmail and YouTube).
*From Buddhist teachings, the mind is of utmost importance and we need to protect it. That is why, one of the five precepts is not to consume intoxicants and drugs as they a) cloud our judgement, b) prime us to misbehave because we are less able to regulate (more impulsive), and c) can make us addicted. As I read this book, I realise that these consequences are exactly what the author say the science is showing that digital media does to us! So, I know there serious spiritual consequence for the mind.
April 10, 2023
All research results, very little practical advice for the reader. Fine if you’re writing your research proposal, not too handy for the lay reader.
December 31, 2022
Attention span is a book i never knew I needed - it taught me so much about myself and useful tools and methods to get me through this slumped period I am in during my current point of life. I learned some useful skills and habits to help me transition to a more productive self.
August 30, 2024
I found this book to be a bit of a challenge to get through, as I was reading about one or two chapters per week. While it's clear that the author put a great deal of research into it, the book often felt more like a compilation of research findings than a cohesive narrative. Up until chapter 8, I did find some of the ideas presented to be quite interesting, but as I continued, the content became somewhat lengthy and dry. For those interested in exploring topics like attention span, I might recommend watching the TED talk "How to Get Your Brain to Focus," which I found to be a more engaging way to dive into this subject.
January 28, 2023
Giving this 4 stars because it was incredibly well-researched and interesting. That being said, I was also hoping for more practical value, which I didn’t get from this book. Anyone who is interested in a deep dive Re: how attention works and the factors that influence it in our daily lives will find this interesting, but that’s it.
May 24, 2025
現代人專注力不足已經不是新聞，相信每個人都心有戚戚焉，我們習慣了快速又片段的接收資訊，大部分的人已經無法回到以前慢慢思考的狀態了，據研究現代人的注意力只有47秒。討論注意力問題的專書在過去十年推陳出新，每年都會有幾本���書出版且獲得注目，探討的主題大同小異，不外乎社群媒體發明以後改變世人互動的方式。智慧型手機的問世進一步推動快速俐落的資訊接收習慣。人類的注意力從來沒有專心過，自古至今都在分心。
二十世紀電視普及以後，社會學家就很擔心人們不再看書進行深度思考，而是偏好整天盯著電視觀看一小時的節目。這種擔憂事後看來顯得很多餘，因為社會發展的方向不會改變，那些文化評論通常也會被時代的浪潮淹沒，所幸一代又一代後繼的學者仍會持之以恆，繼續用筆桿子著書立說，希望救一個、算一個。假如有人能夠因為自己的研究而改變人生，這也是最讓人開心的學術成果吧?
《內在專注力的節奏》是一本科普作品，它不是商管書籍，而是從心理學的角度分析21世紀人類注意力的演變。作者葛洛莉亞．瑪珂是加州大學爾灣分校的心理學家，她最大的熱情是藝術，但發現藝術在經濟上太難養活自己，還好她數學也很強，意外的進入密西根大學進修統計碩士，接著在哥倫比亞大學取得心理學博士。心理學是21世紀的顯學之一，包含AI在內的很多科學背後都涉及心理學，或者擴大包含神經科學，這些學科經常需要使用進階的統計研究方法。另外，人的心靈有豐富的樣貌，瑪珂教授有藝術家的細膩心思，投入這個人心與科技交會的領域，簡直是使命的召喚。
她從21世紀之交開始投入人機互動的領域，研究人類如何跟機器互動。人類是唯一懂得發明工具來強化自身能力的物種，科技的進步等於工具的迭代，人們發明越來越強大的工具以更高效的完成工作。每次新科技的出現，往往都會改變人類社會的樣貌，例如車輛發明以後，讓遠距離通勤成為可能，郊區就此出現，車輛也改變人們生活的方式。網路和手機的發明也不惶多讓，它讓所有人都緊密連結，人們也不用再像過往頻繁的面對面互動，轉而以電子傳輸的方式與人交流。21世紀的人機互動研究即聚焦於此，希望透過嚴謹的學術研究，探討智慧型裝置如何影響人類社會，以及人們跟機器互動時，心理層面是否有受到任何影響。
我在讀本書之前，看到「人機互動」當下會聯想到人類跟機器人在互動，以為這是很新穎的研究領域。不過其實這裡的機器指的是電腦和手機，這兩項裝置已經成為日常生活的重要組成，舉凡工作到生活，幾乎任何事情都須仰賴這些機器。某種程度上可以說人類跟機器已經融為一體，人類不論生理或心理，都需要進行調適，才能在數位時代生存。人機互動研究的目的，就是希望提供一個指引，讓大家可以更從容的應對數位生活的挑戰。
這本書在Goodreads上面有1500則評分，但評分普通3.5顆星，我瀏覽底下的評論，發現好幾位讀者都說本書提供詳盡的研究彙整，但缺少可以直接應用於生活的實體建議，不如直接去讀自我成長(self-help)類型的書更實在。看到這邊讓我也反思看書的意義，我反而是比較喜歡學習理論，了解事物背後的原理，知道理論就能自己實踐了，所以覺得自我成長都是本末倒置…
不過這一兩年隨著社會經驗累積，也開始反省自己思維的盲點太自以為，認清其實大部分的事情不用瞭解太多”原理”，直接實務落地就好，例如開設自我成長頻道，講學術研究沒人在乎，觀眾需要的是實務作法。就像療癒系暢銷書，直接寫為了愛情應該要如何如何，那些文句很容易寫出來，也不需要科學佐證，反正就是一種文字遊戲，讓讀者覺得觸動心靈就達到目標了。以目的為導向，思考太多脈絡意義不大。
本書GR上最多讚(50個算很多)的留言甚至還直接寫:
[It's a science book, but with a bit too many author-insertions/memoir for me. Like, do I care that the author is a colorectal cancer survivor or that she was pregnant in a sweltering room in Germany one day? Do I care that she had a sabbatical in NYC or in Austria? I do not. And the author says "we" too much, which is a stylistic tic that I personally hate. Not sure that I prefer my science books to be written in first-person.]
這位網友不在乎作者曾經生病過。瑪珂博士會生病是因為她為了在世界上最煎熬的職場”學術界”取得一席之地，在三、四十歲努力打拼，但她察覺到自己的注意力被各種外部或內在的因素干擾，使她心力交瘁，而身邊的同儕也身陷各種注意力陷阱。這讓她更加堅信數位時代的注意力危機值得深入研究，她也發揮許多巧思，開創許多創新的研究方法，讓研究員可以在人們真實的生活中進行調查，打破從前只能在受控的實驗室監測的限制。
瑪珂博士曾於學術休假期間去德國的研究機構交流，這是學術交流最吸引人的地方，她得以親自感受大西洋兩岸的文化差異。在德國，同仁期待一起享用午餐聊天激發靈感，並一同散步半小時，精神飽滿開啟下午的工作。她回到美國後，她每天都急急忙忙，路過咖啡館時快速帶上一個冷凍三明治，回到辦公室電腦前開始拼命寫論文，而她剛才經過走廊看到其他的同仁也正啃著三明治敲打鍵盤。我喜歡科普書籍作者將自身經驗代入，不然跟論文有何差異呢?
另一個常見的書評寫法是說這本書應該用一篇雜誌長文寫就即可，不需要長篇大論，這句話已經成為所有書評的經典模板! 這也是注意力稀缺的例證之一，本書是作者二十幾年心血的濃縮，但有些人還是嫌太長了。《內在專注力的節奏》不免俗也會有人如此說道。確實書的內容有些許重複，甚至有些混亂，畢竟”注意力”涉及太多面向，包含科技、社會、人格特質等都會交互影響，變因包山包海。能夠在迷霧中照亮一條道路實屬不易，瑪珂博士卻成功辦到了! 她條理分明將注意力分門別類，並套用在不同的情境底下，說明人的注意力具有「頻動性」(kinetic)，可以在不同的認知任務中彈性切換。
20世紀心理學有一個廣受歡迎的”心流”理論，這本書也是自我成長最愛的書籍之一，他鼓勵大家在工作上進入心流，忘我到忘卻時間的流逝。這種高度的注意力是一種理想的情境，但瑪珂博士點破盲點，過往的心理學研究只考慮投入程度，並未將任務的挑戰性納入評估。假如同時考量投入程度和挑戰性，便可以將注意力分成四種類型: [專注、重複、挫折、無聊]。
數位時代的多數工作本質上難以使知識工作者進入心流。我們應該追求的是高品質的專注。本書另一個核心觀點是”認知資源”，大腦每天要處理大量的資訊，每一件事都會消耗寶貴的認知資源，應該妥善分配使用，以及聰明的使其休息復原。看似無腦的滑臉書會用到”重複”的注意力，過度消耗於此不宜，但一個人總不能一直使用”專注”注意力，偶爾切換到”重複”注意力的頻寬，其實可以恢復認知資源。這就是所謂的注意力「頻動性」。
本書的內容所有人都不陌生，例如一心多用並不會提高生產力，反而會耗損注意力；演算法的目的就是要盡其所能提高黏著度…等。我閱讀最大的收穫是從心理學的視角，學到了這些事物背後的科學和歷史脈絡。舉例來說，網路發明時的構想包含了語意網絡(semantic network)，這是一種知識的結構或譜系，也是人類意識的運作模式之一，人類的思考並非全然線性，而是透過聯想交織在一起。網路的發明就是要讓所有節點亂中有序、若有似無的連結在一起，讓網路成為人類集體的意識檔案庫。當個體的意識連結上網路，很自然就會開始心思漫遊，不知不覺數小時過去，寶貴的認知資源也就浪費掉了。
我很喜歡本書廣泛地從不同角度分析注意力面臨的挑戰。有一些思辨很有趣，例如自由意志和注意力的關係。人類以擁有自由意志為榮，但有些人提出反面論證，試圖說明我們看似有主觀選擇的自由，實際上一切行為早已被社會機制主導，就像演算法已經限制使用者自行探索的自由，導致扁平時代的來臨。歸根究柢，網路數位化只會更深入滲透你我的生活~今年AI代理人也是最熱門的商業關鍵字。隨著我們漸漸把能動性(agency)交給機器，人類究竟還剩下什麼? 資本社會無暇去思考這些感性問題，它唯一考慮的就是利潤與規模。
看書可能是這個時代碩果僅存還能保留能動性的活動之一，同時又能補充認知資源，看了這本書我才知道原來注意力也有節奏。我最近學到一個新的詞叫”物候學” (Phenology)，生理節奏和氣候環境會有規律的交互影響，不妨讓我們當個everyday phenologist，好好澆灌心理的沃土，注意力才能長為春華秋實，等待瓜熟蒂落的那一天。
二十世紀電視普及以後，社會學家就很擔心人們不再看書進行深度思考，而是偏好整天盯著電視觀看一小時的節目。這種擔憂事後看來顯得很多餘，因為社會發展的方向不會改變，那些文化評論通常也會被時代的浪潮淹沒，所幸一代又一代後繼的學者仍會持之以恆，繼續用筆桿子著書立說，希望救一個、算一個。假如有人能夠因為自己的研究而改變人生，這也是最讓人開心的學術成果吧?
《內在專注力的節奏》是一本科普作品，它不是商管書籍，而是從心理學的角度分析21世紀人類注意力的演變。作者葛洛莉亞．瑪珂是加州大學爾灣分校的心理學家，她最大的熱情是藝術，但發現藝術在經濟上太難養活自己，還好她數學也很強，意外的進入密西根大學進修統計碩士，接著在哥倫比亞大學取得心理學博士。心理學是21世紀的顯學之一，包含AI在內的很多科學背後都涉及心理學，或者擴大包含神經科學，這些學科經常需要使用進階的統計研究方法。另外，人的心靈有豐富的樣貌，瑪珂教授有藝術家的細膩心思，投入這個人心與科技交會的領域，簡直是使命的召喚。
她從21世紀之交開始投入人機互動的領域，研究人類如何跟機器互動。人類是唯一懂得發明工具來強化自身能力的物種，科技的進步等於工具的迭代，人們發明越來越強大的工具以更高效的完成工作。每次新科技的出現，往往都會改變人類社會的樣貌，例如車輛發明以後，讓遠距離通勤成為可能，郊區就此出現，車輛也改變人們生活的方式。網路和手機的發明也不惶多讓，它讓所有人都緊密連結，人們也不用再像過往頻繁的面對面互動，轉而以電子傳輸的方式與人交流。21世紀的人機互動研究即聚焦於此，希望透過嚴謹的學術研究，探討智慧型裝置如何影響人類社會，以及人們跟機器互動時，心理層面是否有受到任何影響。
我在讀本書之前，看到「人機互動」當下會聯想到人類跟機器人在互動，以為這是很新穎的研究領域。不過其實這裡的機器指的是電腦和手機，這兩項裝置已經成為日常生活的重要組成，舉凡工作到生活，幾乎任何事情都須仰賴這些機器。某種程度上可以說人類跟機器已經融為一體，人類不論生理或心理，都需要進行調適，才能在數位時代生存。人機互動研究的目的，就是希望提供一個指引，讓大家可以更從容的應對數位生活的挑戰。
這本書在Goodreads上面有1500則評分，但評分普通3.5顆星，我瀏覽底下的評論，發現好幾位讀者都說本書提供詳盡的研究彙整，但缺少可以直接應用於生活的實體建議，不如直接去讀自我成長(self-help)類型的書更實在。看到這邊讓我也反思看書的意義，我反而是比較喜歡學習理論，了解事物背後的原理，知道理論就能自己實踐了，所以覺得自我成長都是本末倒置…
不過這一兩年隨著社會經驗累積，也開始反省自己思維的盲點太自以為，認清其實大部分的事情不用瞭解太多”原理”，直接實務落地就好，例如開設自我成長頻道，講學術研究沒人在乎，觀眾需要的是實務作法。就像療癒系暢銷書，直接寫為了愛情應該要如何如何，那些文句很容易寫出來，也不需要科學佐證，反正就是一種文字遊戲，讓讀者覺得觸動心靈就達到目標了。以目的為導向，思考太多脈絡意義不大。
本書GR上最多讚(50個算很多)的留言甚至還直接寫:
[It's a science book, but with a bit too many author-insertions/memoir for me. Like, do I care that the author is a colorectal cancer survivor or that she was pregnant in a sweltering room in Germany one day? Do I care that she had a sabbatical in NYC or in Austria? I do not. And the author says "we" too much, which is a stylistic tic that I personally hate. Not sure that I prefer my science books to be written in first-person.]
這位網友不在乎作者曾經生病過。瑪珂博士會生病是因為她為了在世界上最煎熬的職場”學術界”取得一席之地，在三、四十歲努力打拼，但她察覺到自己的注意力被各種外部或內在的因素干擾，使她心力交瘁，而身邊的同儕也身陷各種注意力陷阱。這讓她更加堅信數位時代的注意力危機值得深入研究，她也發揮許多巧思，開創許多創新的研究方法，讓研究員可以在人們真實的生活中進行調查，打破從前只能在受控的實驗室監測的限制。
瑪珂博士曾於學術休假期間去德國的研究機構交流，這是學術交流最吸引人的地方，她得以親自感受大西洋兩岸的文化差異。在德國，同仁期待一起享用午餐聊天激發靈感，並一同散步半小時，精神飽滿開啟下午的工作。她回到美國後，她每天都急急忙忙，路過咖啡館時快速帶上一個冷凍三明治，回到辦公室電腦前開始拼命寫論文，而她剛才經過走廊看到其他的同仁也正啃著三明治敲打鍵盤。我喜歡科普書籍作者將自身經驗代入，不然跟論文有何差異呢?
另一個常見的書評寫法是說這本書應該用一篇雜誌長文寫就即可，不需要長篇大論，這句話已經成為所有書評的經典模板! 這也是注意力稀缺的例證之一，本書是作者二十幾年心血的濃縮，但有些人還是嫌太長了。《內在專注力的節奏》不免俗也會有人如此說道。確實書的內容有些許重複，甚至有些混亂，畢竟”注意力”涉及太多面向，包含科技、社會、人格特質等都會交互影響，變因包山包海。能夠在迷霧中照亮一條道路實屬不易，瑪珂博士卻成功辦到了! 她條理分明將注意力分門別類，並套用在不同的情境底下，說明人的注意力具有「頻動性」(kinetic)，可以在不同的認知任務中彈性切換。
20世紀心理學有一個廣受歡迎的”心流”理論，這本書也是自我成長最愛的書籍之一，他鼓勵大家在工作上進入心流，忘我到忘卻時間的流逝。這種高度的注意力是一種理想的情境，但瑪珂博士點破盲點，過往的心理學研究只考慮投入程度，並未將任務的挑戰性納入評估。假如同時考量投入程度和挑戰性，便可以將注意力分成四種類型: [專注、重複、挫折、無聊]。
數位時代的多數工作本質上難以使知識工作者進入心流。我們應該追求的是高品質的專注。本書另一個核心觀點是”認知資源”，大腦每天要處理大量的資訊，每一件事都會消耗寶貴的認知資源，應該妥善分配使用，以及聰明的使其休息復原。看似無腦的滑臉書會用到”重複”的注意力，過度消耗於此不宜，但一個人總不能一直使用”專注”注意力，偶爾切換到”重複”注意力的頻寬，其實可以恢復認知資源。這就是所謂的注意力「頻動性」。
本書的內容所有人都不陌生，例如一心多用並不會提高生產力，反而會耗損注意力；演算法的目的就是要盡其所能提高黏著度…等。我閱讀最大的收穫是從心理學的視角，學到了這些事物背後的科學和歷史脈絡。舉例來說，網路發明時的構想包含了語意網絡(semantic network)，這是一種知識的結構或譜系，也是人類意識的運作模式之一，人類的思考並非全然線性，而是透過聯想交織在一起。網路的發明就是要讓所有節點亂中有序、若有似無的連結在一起，讓網路成為人類集體的意識檔案庫。當個體的意識連結上網路，很自然就會開始心思漫遊，不知不覺數小時過去，寶貴的認知資源也就浪費掉了。
我很喜歡本書廣泛地從不同角度分析注意力面臨的挑戰。有一些思辨很有趣，例如自由意志和注意力的關係。人類以擁有自由意志為榮，但有些人提出反面論證，試圖說明我們看似有主觀選擇的自由，實際上一切行為早已被社會機制主導，就像演算法已經限制使用者自行探索的自由，導致扁平時代的來臨。歸根究柢，網路數位化只會更深入滲透你我的生活~今年AI代理人也是最熱門的商業關鍵字。隨著我們漸漸把能動性(agency)交給機器，人類究竟還剩下什麼? 資本社會無暇去思考這些感性問題，它唯一考慮的就是利潤與規模。
看書可能是這個時代碩果僅存還能保留能動性的活動之一，同時又能補充認知資源，看了這本書我才知道原來注意力也有節奏。我最近學到一個新的詞叫”物候學” (Phenology)，生理節奏和氣候環境會有規律的交互影響，不妨讓我們當個everyday phenologist，好好澆灌心理的沃土，注意力才能長為春華秋實，等待瓜熟蒂落的那一天。
February 4, 2023
I found this interesting but for me personally not very helpful.
Read
March 30, 2023Reclaim your agency in a digital world.
Here’s a question: How many times did you pick up your phone today?
Over the past two decades, we’ve developed an unbreakable bond with our digital devices. We spend hours each day in front of screens, jumping between different websites, apps, and posts.
This has come at a cost. Our attention spans have shortened, and we feel more stressed than ever. In fact, with our phones abuzz with notifications, emails dropping in every few minutes, and companies preying on our most primitive desires, it can feel like our attention is completely out of our control. Yet disconnecting is impossible – at least if you want to keep a job or have a social life.
So what can you do? Hopefully, this book by Gloria Mark’s Attention Span will help. We’ll break down her research on behavioral science to explain how the digital age has changed the nature of our attention. Then we’ll explore how we can use that knowledge to regain control – not in the name of more productivity, but in the name of better well-being.
So with that, let’s get started.
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Declining attention spans in the digital age
Let’s be honest: we don’t need scientific data to know our attention is waning.
You’ve probably noticed it in yourself – the constant urge to pick up your phone, the Reddit rabbit hole you can’t seem to pull yourself out of, the countless hours spent on TikTok.
The digital world commands our attention like no other human invention before it. As a consequence, it has changed the way we live, work, and think.
Gloria Mark has studied people’s relationship with digital technology for almost as long as it has existed. Much of this research was conducted in “living laboratories” where researchers observed people in their everyday workplaces. Stopwatches, clickers, and notes were used to record their behavior.
Here’s what the research found. On average, people in the workplace spend about 3 minutes on a task before switching to another. But on the computer, they switch attention – from one website to another, for instance – every 2.5 minutes. Or at least they did in 2004. By 2021, they’d started switching their attention every 47 seconds.
Not all of these attention shifts are conscious and purposeful. Some happen out of boredom, some out of habit, and some happen when the internet does what it does best – pull us into a rabbit hole of link-wandering.
Another concerning finding? When people get interrupted during a work task, it takes them 25 minutes to get back to their original task. Sometimes these interruptions are external, such as an incoming phone call or a colleague eager to chat. But often, they also happen internally when a question, memory, or important task pops into their head.
To be clear, attention-shifting, multitasking, and interruptions have existed long before the internet. Our brains are actually pretty good at dealing with these scenarios. But every time they do, they use up quite a bit of mental energy. And the more it happens, the quicker our resources are depleted. No wonder we feel more stressed, exhausted, and burned out than ever before!
These basic findings about our attention spans should come as no surprise. But some of the results that scientists have uncovered actually run counter to the narratives we tell ourselves. That’s right – we’re about to bust some of the common myths about attention.
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The rhythms of attention
Let’s rewind a little: What is attention, anyway?
Psychologists define it as the ability to consciously process certain things in our environments while excluding others. There’s no specific part of the brain responsible for this. Rather, the attentional system consists of a bunch of different networks. These networks coordinate skills such as sustaining awareness, prioritizing tasks, using working memory, and practicing self-regulation.
Depending on how engaged and challenged we are by the object of our attention, we can distinguish between four attention types.
When we are highly engaged and highly challenged by something, we are in a state of focus. This is what happens when you’re engrossed in a work project. When we’re highly engaged but not at all challenged, we’re in a rote state – flicking through TikTok videos or playing Candy Crush. When we’re not engaged and also not challenged, we’re in a bored state. And when we’re not engaged but highly challenged, we’re in a frustrated state.
There’s a myth that in order to be productive, we should strive for focus above all else. But every attentional state has its purpose and value. In fact, even rote digital activities like playing Candy Crush can be good for us. That’s because we can’t sustain focus forever. Different attention types ebb and flow throughout the day. For most people, focus is highest at 11:00 a.m. and again at 3:00 p.m., while boredom peaks shortly after lunch.
The reason we can’t sustain focus forever is that it uses up a lot of our cognitive resources – and these resources aren’t endless. In order to replenish them, we need to take breaks. Apart from good sleep and nice vacations, low-effort mindless activities can provide daily mini-breaks that help us recover our energy. People tend to be happier during rote activities than in a focused state, which means they have an additional benefit of boosting our mood.
Then there’s the myth of flow: an elusive state of deep focus in which you are so engaged with a task that you completely lose track of time. Artists frequently experience flow when they’re painting or making music. But “knowledge work” – jobs that include a lot of communication, research, and analysis – simply doesn’t offer many opportunities for this state.
That doesn’t mean that people in these jobs can’t be happy, engaged, and productive. They just need to learn to flow with their natural rhythms of attention. We’ll get back to this later, when we discuss different tips and tricks for guiding your attention.
---
The hidden costs of distraction and multitasking
By now, it should be clear that not all attention is under our conscious control. In a state of focus, we’re directing our energy to serve a specific goal – like writing a paper. But our attention is also driven by external distractions – someone shouting our name, for example, or the ping of a notification.
When people are frequently interrupted in their work by such distractions, they report more frustration, pressure, and stress. No surprise there – as we know, it takes us about 25 minutes to get back to work after an interruption. What might surprise you, though, is that people interrupt themselves almost as often as they are interrupted by outside forces.
Researchers found that 44 percent of the time, people switch their attention without any visible trigger. You’ve experienced it: You’re in the middle of an important task when suddenly, the urge to check Instagram overcomes you. Or you need to know when Prince died. Or you remember you really have to schedule that dentist appointment.
The more we are interrupted from the outside, the more we start interrupting ourselves. These interruptions can be soothing. They give our minds a little break from the hard work and help us manage stress. But they can also cause lingering emotions, use up cognitive resources, and lure us into scrolling spirals.
How well we cope with interruptions depends on all kinds of social, environmental, and genetic factors. Women are slightly better at picking up interrupted tasks than men. They also tend to handle simultaneous working “spheres” more easily.
This means there might be some truth to the old trope that women are better at multitasking. But don’t fool yourself: the percentage of supertaskers – people who can multitask without sacrificing mood and performance points – is very small. For most of us, paying attention to two things at once is only possible if one of them is very automatic. For instance, you probably have no problem talking on the phone while walking. But if both tasks demand conscious effort – like having a Zoom call while writing an email – we’re not really paying attention to both at the same time. Instead, we’re rapidly switching our attention. And that takes a lot of resources.
But straining to resist distractions can also use up resources. Self-control is like a muscle – if we use it too often throughout the day, it eventually gets too weak to function. And some people have bigger self-control muscles than others.
Surprisingly, very conscientious people spend more time on entertainment websites than their peers. You’d think this would make them get distracted more, but they actually have an easier time pulling themselves back to work. This allows them to use these activities as conscious breaks from their work. As for the rest of us, we’ll have to keep training that self-control muscle little by little.
---
Surviving the attention economy
There’s another modern myth surrounding our attention. It’s that we succumb to distractions, interruptions, and multitasking due to a lack of discipline. We tell ourselves that we’re just not making enough of an effort to sustain our attention.
But this view ignores that our behavior is shaped by the culture, technology, and attitudes of our time.
The internet is everywhere today. And the reason it has become so popular is that its network structure perfectly mimics the structure of our mind. Hyperlinks allow us to indulge our curiosity by following associative connections, much as we do when mind-wandering on our own. We can start reading about Leonardo da Vinci, seamlessly transition to an article about the Mona Lisa, and end up learning about French history.
Our attention may start as goal-directed – we want to look up something about Leonardo da Vinci – but it then gradually becomes more open and opportunistic. Our brain knows that a new reward lies behind every link: more information. So we click, often not even conscious of our choice.
Companies figured out how to capitalize on this effect a long time ago. They use algorithms to collect data about our personalities, attitudes, and behaviors to predict what kind of links will get us to click. And as you probably know from experience, they’re getting freakishly good at it. Today, your smartphone can even use its sensor data to detect whether you’re a runner.
Because they want you to see as many ads as possible, social media companies also have an interest in keeping you scrolling. They do this with algorithms promoting content that elicits emotional reactions such happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and even anger.
And as our attention spans have been getting shorter, so has the content. Or vice versa – this is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. But we know that TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook all limit the length of content that can be uploaded. Even most online ads run no longer than 10 seconds. It’s not just the internet either. Movies today cut between shots every four seconds. Back in 1980, cuts occurred about half as often.
Such fast-paced video content has been shown to increase our heart rates and impulsivity, and drain our cognitive resources. If you add the fact that the average American spends nearly 10 hours a day on some kind of screen, you really start to see the bigger picture.
When it comes to taking control of our attention, we’re up against some powerful forces. So what can we do?
---
Reclaiming your attention
If companies are so good at manipulating us that we’re not even conscious of our online choices, how much control do we have?
We could get into a lengthy philosophical debate about free will. But most psychologists subscribe to a view called soft determinism. This view holds that our conditioning shapes our behavior but doesn’t completely determine it. Reclaiming our attention therefore begins with developing more digital agency.
For this, we first need to develop a meta-awareness of our digital behavior. This means recognizing our habits, understanding what forces are trying to manipulate our attention, and learning which distractions we are worst at resisting.
We can cultivate this awareness by getting into the habit of asking the right questions. For instance, before you go on Instagram, ask yourself, What will I gain there?
And when you’re already on Instagram, ask yourself, How much time have I spent here? What am I gaining here? You can also visualize the end of your day – when you come home from work, how will you feel having spent two hours in a YouTube rabbit hole?
The more often you remember to ask these questions, the easier they’ll come to you next time. Remember: self-regulation is like a muscle.
It also helps to get in tune with your natural rhythms of attention. Most people focus best around 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., and have the biggest dip after 1:00 p.m., right? Knowing this, you can structure your day to complete your hardest tasks during those times of peak focus.
You should also learn to recognize when your attention is low, and schedule deliberate breaks of rote activity for those dips. This could be scrolling through social media, but it could also be taking a walk. A good time to shift your attention is during a natural pause in your workflow – for example, right after you’ve finished reading a chapter or sent off an email.
When you go for a rote digital activity like playing Candy Crush, plant a hook that will pull you back to work. For example, schedule the break activity 10 minutes before a call. Just make sure you don’t miss the call!
Ultimately, a healthy relationship with technology requires change on the individual, organizational, and societal level. Companies can designate email-free hours, for instance, and governments can support programs for media literacy education in schools.
Because for as much as technology has changed us, we should also remember that the digital world is shaped by us. Once we start understanding our behavior, we can begin to leverage our new kinetic attention to our advantage.
---
Digital technologies have changed the structure of our attention. As our reliance on screens has solidified, our attention spans have shortened – the average worker now spends just 47 seconds on a screen before shifting attention. Our habit of self-interruption and multitasking is impacting our performance and, most importantly, our well-being.
It’s not all our fault: the internet is perfectly designed to engage our minds, and online companies have become experts at manipulating our attention. If we want to reclaim our digital agency and take control of our attention, we first need to understand these forces acting on it. Only then can we begin to flow with the natural rhythms of our attention while protecting it from distractions. We don’t need to get off the grid, or even uninstall Candy Crush – we just need to be smarter than our smart devices.
Here’s a question: How many times did you pick up your phone today?
Over the past two decades, we’ve developed an unbreakable bond with our digital devices. We spend hours each day in front of screens, jumping between different websites, apps, and posts.
This has come at a cost. Our attention spans have shortened, and we feel more stressed than ever. In fact, with our phones abuzz with notifications, emails dropping in every few minutes, and companies preying on our most primitive desires, it can feel like our attention is completely out of our control. Yet disconnecting is impossible – at least if you want to keep a job or have a social life.
So what can you do? Hopefully, this book by Gloria Mark’s Attention Span will help. We’ll break down her research on behavioral science to explain how the digital age has changed the nature of our attention. Then we’ll explore how we can use that knowledge to regain control – not in the name of more productivity, but in the name of better well-being.
So with that, let’s get started.
---
Declining attention spans in the digital age
Let’s be honest: we don’t need scientific data to know our attention is waning.
You’ve probably noticed it in yourself – the constant urge to pick up your phone, the Reddit rabbit hole you can’t seem to pull yourself out of, the countless hours spent on TikTok.
The digital world commands our attention like no other human invention before it. As a consequence, it has changed the way we live, work, and think.
Gloria Mark has studied people’s relationship with digital technology for almost as long as it has existed. Much of this research was conducted in “living laboratories” where researchers observed people in their everyday workplaces. Stopwatches, clickers, and notes were used to record their behavior.
Here’s what the research found. On average, people in the workplace spend about 3 minutes on a task before switching to another. But on the computer, they switch attention – from one website to another, for instance – every 2.5 minutes. Or at least they did in 2004. By 2021, they’d started switching their attention every 47 seconds.
Not all of these attention shifts are conscious and purposeful. Some happen out of boredom, some out of habit, and some happen when the internet does what it does best – pull us into a rabbit hole of link-wandering.
Another concerning finding? When people get interrupted during a work task, it takes them 25 minutes to get back to their original task. Sometimes these interruptions are external, such as an incoming phone call or a colleague eager to chat. But often, they also happen internally when a question, memory, or important task pops into their head.
To be clear, attention-shifting, multitasking, and interruptions have existed long before the internet. Our brains are actually pretty good at dealing with these scenarios. But every time they do, they use up quite a bit of mental energy. And the more it happens, the quicker our resources are depleted. No wonder we feel more stressed, exhausted, and burned out than ever before!
These basic findings about our attention spans should come as no surprise. But some of the results that scientists have uncovered actually run counter to the narratives we tell ourselves. That’s right – we’re about to bust some of the common myths about attention.
---
The rhythms of attention
Let’s rewind a little: What is attention, anyway?
Psychologists define it as the ability to consciously process certain things in our environments while excluding others. There’s no specific part of the brain responsible for this. Rather, the attentional system consists of a bunch of different networks. These networks coordinate skills such as sustaining awareness, prioritizing tasks, using working memory, and practicing self-regulation.
Depending on how engaged and challenged we are by the object of our attention, we can distinguish between four attention types.
When we are highly engaged and highly challenged by something, we are in a state of focus. This is what happens when you’re engrossed in a work project. When we’re highly engaged but not at all challenged, we’re in a rote state – flicking through TikTok videos or playing Candy Crush. When we’re not engaged and also not challenged, we’re in a bored state. And when we’re not engaged but highly challenged, we’re in a frustrated state.
There’s a myth that in order to be productive, we should strive for focus above all else. But every attentional state has its purpose and value. In fact, even rote digital activities like playing Candy Crush can be good for us. That’s because we can’t sustain focus forever. Different attention types ebb and flow throughout the day. For most people, focus is highest at 11:00 a.m. and again at 3:00 p.m., while boredom peaks shortly after lunch.
The reason we can’t sustain focus forever is that it uses up a lot of our cognitive resources – and these resources aren’t endless. In order to replenish them, we need to take breaks. Apart from good sleep and nice vacations, low-effort mindless activities can provide daily mini-breaks that help us recover our energy. People tend to be happier during rote activities than in a focused state, which means they have an additional benefit of boosting our mood.
Then there’s the myth of flow: an elusive state of deep focus in which you are so engaged with a task that you completely lose track of time. Artists frequently experience flow when they’re painting or making music. But “knowledge work” – jobs that include a lot of communication, research, and analysis – simply doesn’t offer many opportunities for this state.
That doesn’t mean that people in these jobs can’t be happy, engaged, and productive. They just need to learn to flow with their natural rhythms of attention. We’ll get back to this later, when we discuss different tips and tricks for guiding your attention.
---
The hidden costs of distraction and multitasking
By now, it should be clear that not all attention is under our conscious control. In a state of focus, we’re directing our energy to serve a specific goal – like writing a paper. But our attention is also driven by external distractions – someone shouting our name, for example, or the ping of a notification.
When people are frequently interrupted in their work by such distractions, they report more frustration, pressure, and stress. No surprise there – as we know, it takes us about 25 minutes to get back to work after an interruption. What might surprise you, though, is that people interrupt themselves almost as often as they are interrupted by outside forces.
Researchers found that 44 percent of the time, people switch their attention without any visible trigger. You’ve experienced it: You’re in the middle of an important task when suddenly, the urge to check Instagram overcomes you. Or you need to know when Prince died. Or you remember you really have to schedule that dentist appointment.
The more we are interrupted from the outside, the more we start interrupting ourselves. These interruptions can be soothing. They give our minds a little break from the hard work and help us manage stress. But they can also cause lingering emotions, use up cognitive resources, and lure us into scrolling spirals.
How well we cope with interruptions depends on all kinds of social, environmental, and genetic factors. Women are slightly better at picking up interrupted tasks than men. They also tend to handle simultaneous working “spheres” more easily.
This means there might be some truth to the old trope that women are better at multitasking. But don’t fool yourself: the percentage of supertaskers – people who can multitask without sacrificing mood and performance points – is very small. For most of us, paying attention to two things at once is only possible if one of them is very automatic. For instance, you probably have no problem talking on the phone while walking. But if both tasks demand conscious effort – like having a Zoom call while writing an email – we’re not really paying attention to both at the same time. Instead, we’re rapidly switching our attention. And that takes a lot of resources.
But straining to resist distractions can also use up resources. Self-control is like a muscle – if we use it too often throughout the day, it eventually gets too weak to function. And some people have bigger self-control muscles than others.
Surprisingly, very conscientious people spend more time on entertainment websites than their peers. You’d think this would make them get distracted more, but they actually have an easier time pulling themselves back to work. This allows them to use these activities as conscious breaks from their work. As for the rest of us, we’ll have to keep training that self-control muscle little by little.
---
Surviving the attention economy
There’s another modern myth surrounding our attention. It’s that we succumb to distractions, interruptions, and multitasking due to a lack of discipline. We tell ourselves that we’re just not making enough of an effort to sustain our attention.
But this view ignores that our behavior is shaped by the culture, technology, and attitudes of our time.
The internet is everywhere today. And the reason it has become so popular is that its network structure perfectly mimics the structure of our mind. Hyperlinks allow us to indulge our curiosity by following associative connections, much as we do when mind-wandering on our own. We can start reading about Leonardo da Vinci, seamlessly transition to an article about the Mona Lisa, and end up learning about French history.
Our attention may start as goal-directed – we want to look up something about Leonardo da Vinci – but it then gradually becomes more open and opportunistic. Our brain knows that a new reward lies behind every link: more information. So we click, often not even conscious of our choice.
Companies figured out how to capitalize on this effect a long time ago. They use algorithms to collect data about our personalities, attitudes, and behaviors to predict what kind of links will get us to click. And as you probably know from experience, they’re getting freakishly good at it. Today, your smartphone can even use its sensor data to detect whether you’re a runner.
Because they want you to see as many ads as possible, social media companies also have an interest in keeping you scrolling. They do this with algorithms promoting content that elicits emotional reactions such happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and even anger.
And as our attention spans have been getting shorter, so has the content. Or vice versa – this is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. But we know that TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook all limit the length of content that can be uploaded. Even most online ads run no longer than 10 seconds. It’s not just the internet either. Movies today cut between shots every four seconds. Back in 1980, cuts occurred about half as often.
Such fast-paced video content has been shown to increase our heart rates and impulsivity, and drain our cognitive resources. If you add the fact that the average American spends nearly 10 hours a day on some kind of screen, you really start to see the bigger picture.
When it comes to taking control of our attention, we’re up against some powerful forces. So what can we do?
---
Reclaiming your attention
If companies are so good at manipulating us that we’re not even conscious of our online choices, how much control do we have?
We could get into a lengthy philosophical debate about free will. But most psychologists subscribe to a view called soft determinism. This view holds that our conditioning shapes our behavior but doesn’t completely determine it. Reclaiming our attention therefore begins with developing more digital agency.
For this, we first need to develop a meta-awareness of our digital behavior. This means recognizing our habits, understanding what forces are trying to manipulate our attention, and learning which distractions we are worst at resisting.
We can cultivate this awareness by getting into the habit of asking the right questions. For instance, before you go on Instagram, ask yourself, What will I gain there?
And when you’re already on Instagram, ask yourself, How much time have I spent here? What am I gaining here? You can also visualize the end of your day – when you come home from work, how will you feel having spent two hours in a YouTube rabbit hole?
The more often you remember to ask these questions, the easier they’ll come to you next time. Remember: self-regulation is like a muscle.
It also helps to get in tune with your natural rhythms of attention. Most people focus best around 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., and have the biggest dip after 1:00 p.m., right? Knowing this, you can structure your day to complete your hardest tasks during those times of peak focus.
You should also learn to recognize when your attention is low, and schedule deliberate breaks of rote activity for those dips. This could be scrolling through social media, but it could also be taking a walk. A good time to shift your attention is during a natural pause in your workflow – for example, right after you’ve finished reading a chapter or sent off an email.
When you go for a rote digital activity like playing Candy Crush, plant a hook that will pull you back to work. For example, schedule the break activity 10 minutes before a call. Just make sure you don’t miss the call!
Ultimately, a healthy relationship with technology requires change on the individual, organizational, and societal level. Companies can designate email-free hours, for instance, and governments can support programs for media literacy education in schools.
Because for as much as technology has changed us, we should also remember that the digital world is shaped by us. Once we start understanding our behavior, we can begin to leverage our new kinetic attention to our advantage.
---
Digital technologies have changed the structure of our attention. As our reliance on screens has solidified, our attention spans have shortened – the average worker now spends just 47 seconds on a screen before shifting attention. Our habit of self-interruption and multitasking is impacting our performance and, most importantly, our well-being.
It’s not all our fault: the internet is perfectly designed to engage our minds, and online companies have become experts at manipulating our attention. If we want to reclaim our digital agency and take control of our attention, we first need to understand these forces acting on it. Only then can we begin to flow with the natural rhythms of our attention while protecting it from distractions. We don’t need to get off the grid, or even uninstall Candy Crush – we just need to be smarter than our smart devices.
February 23, 2023
Am I ever on a roll with my recent reading. My last 3 books include a novel, a memoir & a self-help book that were, for me, all completely underwhelming.
When I read a book like Attention Span, I expect a statement of the problem being dealt with, some discussion related to the causes and effects associated with that problem, and concrete suggestions as to actions that can be taken to impact that problem. The author did a decent job laying the problem out. She also did a good job discussing the relevant research and observations (almost too much detail) as well as the impact associated with the issue. My biggest issue was with her lack of well defined actions that we can take to mitigate the impact of technology & our devices in our lives. I finished the book and took very little away in terms of specific things I can do to better manage my attention.
I have also commented several times that self-help books often would be better articles than books. There’s a lot of repetition that over time becomes a little annoying. Attention Span may have been a much better article than it is a book.
Additionally, I also had an annoying pet peeve related to the author’s use of the word ‘agency.’ I may not be the most well read person in the world, but I read quite a bit. I’m reasonably well educated & articulate, yet I have never, or at least do not recall, ever reading about people having ‘agency.’ I had to look it up and learned that ‘sense of agency’ refers to the feeling of control over actions and their consequences. Makes sense, but seems like a very awkward phrase to me, and she uses it all the time. I found it annoying and maybe a bit pretentious, but that’s just me.
Well … time to pick another mediocre book to read.
When I read a book like Attention Span, I expect a statement of the problem being dealt with, some discussion related to the causes and effects associated with that problem, and concrete suggestions as to actions that can be taken to impact that problem. The author did a decent job laying the problem out. She also did a good job discussing the relevant research and observations (almost too much detail) as well as the impact associated with the issue. My biggest issue was with her lack of well defined actions that we can take to mitigate the impact of technology & our devices in our lives. I finished the book and took very little away in terms of specific things I can do to better manage my attention.
I have also commented several times that self-help books often would be better articles than books. There’s a lot of repetition that over time becomes a little annoying. Attention Span may have been a much better article than it is a book.
Additionally, I also had an annoying pet peeve related to the author’s use of the word ‘agency.’ I may not be the most well read person in the world, but I read quite a bit. I’m reasonably well educated & articulate, yet I have never, or at least do not recall, ever reading about people having ‘agency.’ I had to look it up and learned that ‘sense of agency’ refers to the feeling of control over actions and their consequences. Makes sense, but seems like a very awkward phrase to me, and she uses it all the time. I found it annoying and maybe a bit pretentious, but that’s just me.
Well … time to pick another mediocre book to read.
September 12, 2023
Attention Span is a valuable read on managing your attention and achieving balance in our distracting, screen-filled world. Mark spends most of the book laying out extensive research on what taxes our attention, and how our attention is deteriorating as we spend 10+ hours a day staring at screens, dealing with notifications, watching rapid-cut videos and television, and too often choosing more digital activity as a way of recharging after intense periods of focus on work. Mark follows this research with strategies for taking charge of our attention, becoming aware of what distracts and burns us out, and using forethought to plan for days that balance well-being with productivity.
This is a must read for knowledge workers in particular, but also parents, college students, and well, anyone who's finding themselves stressed and drained a lot of the time. I feel like I came away from the book with some good concrete ideas I can put into practice right away. I especially liked Mark’s emphasis on prioritizing well-being in how we plan our days, knowing that improved energy and productivity will be natural offshoots of that focus on well-being.
This is a must read for knowledge workers in particular, but also parents, college students, and well, anyone who's finding themselves stressed and drained a lot of the time. I feel like I came away from the book with some good concrete ideas I can put into practice right away. I especially liked Mark’s emphasis on prioritizing well-being in how we plan our days, knowing that improved energy and productivity will be natural offshoots of that focus on well-being.
December 26, 2024
I have to say, I really appreciate that this isn't a "productivity" book. In fact, part of the author's main thesis is that our current focus on "productivity über alles" is toxic and detrimental to basic human psychology. The other half of the premise is that instead of helping us lead happier, more "productive" lives, the digital media that bombards us all day long is actively hindering our mental well-being. The latter statement may seem like a no-brainer, but as a lead researcher delving into the depths of the how-and-why of it, Mark brings the receipts and shows how the distraction sausage is made.
My chief complaint about this book is that, like so many others on my psych book shelf, it's long on the exploration of the problem but short on actual, applicable solutions. Mark gives a high-level overview of how to eat your mental vegetables - basically, don't try to be productive all day long, but instead get to know your attentional rhythms and budget space and time to recharge during your day before you burn out completely.
My advice: read this book back-to-back with Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. The latter is a productivity book, but one aimed at how to reduce sources of distraction and full of practical suggestions. If you can pair Knapp & Zeratsky's tips with Mark's understanding of mental and emotional energy flow, you might be able to keep yourself sane and still get all the stuff done that you want.
My chief complaint about this book is that, like so many others on my psych book shelf, it's long on the exploration of the problem but short on actual, applicable solutions. Mark gives a high-level overview of how to eat your mental vegetables - basically, don't try to be productive all day long, but instead get to know your attentional rhythms and budget space and time to recharge during your day before you burn out completely.
My advice: read this book back-to-back with Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. The latter is a productivity book, but one aimed at how to reduce sources of distraction and full of practical suggestions. If you can pair Knapp & Zeratsky's tips with Mark's understanding of mental and emotional energy flow, you might be able to keep yourself sane and still get all the stuff done that you want.
March 1, 2024
Hoewel er nuttige inzichten over aandacht in dit boek staan, evenals tips om regie te nemen over je aandacht in een steeds meer gedigitaliseerde wereld, geef ik dit boek twee sterren. Allereerst omdat het meer een opsomming van onderzoeken is, een soort literatuurstudie, dan een leesboek voor het algemene publiek. Ten tweede omdat er ontzettend veel herhaling in zit. Ten derde omdat het pas op het eind een beetje praktisch wordt: hoe pas je deze inzichten toe in de praktijk van het dagelijkse leven?
March 1, 2023
It was a very good book. I did have to slow down a bit to focus on the material so I would comprehend the material. I do however recommend the book.
November 27, 2023
Por su título, “Cómo recuperar la capacidad de atención. Un método revolucionario para concentrarse y combatir la distracción”, este libro despierta muchas expectativas y es muy llamativo. Honestamente fue un libro muy agradable de leer y ofrece información bastante relevante sobre el tema de la atención y las distracciones. Sin embargo, el libro no cumple cabalmente con las expectativas del título. Las herramientas para combatir la distracción solo se concentran en el capítulo 13 y de una forma muy superficial. Además de esto, la editorial de esta versión removió las referencias del libro (posiblemente para ahorrar espacio y tinta), proporcionando una dirección a una página web en donde se pueden descargar estas. Al momento de hacer esta revisión, la página no existe. No disponer de estas notas le quita al libro gran parte de su utilidad, ya que el libro hace referencia a trabajos que parecen bastante interesantes de poder consultar para profundizar en el tema. Una verdadera lástima.
January 29, 2023
I enjoyed this book. The first few chapters felt like someone had literally crawled inside my head and watched me work for the past few years. Crazy the amount of distractions we all deal with daily. I gave this 4-stars only b/c I felt the book was a little short on practical methods to regain focus - many of the tactics mentioned were things I personally already do. I did find it insightful how Dr. Mark broke down how we've gotten to this point - especially the data around film and shot sequence timing - wow - completely learned something new there. If you are a Cal Newport fan you'll find this book interesting. Even though there is a lot of data the book is written in an easy to read format.
May 21, 2023
a long book to tell us what we already know
Manage your environment so it is less distracting, work with your natural bio rhythms, find balance with different kinds of attention, ‘mindless’ rote activity can help reset the nervous system, Tik Tok can make you laugh and feel good.
My recommendation is to read Steven Kotler’s the Art of the Impossible for a more detailed and forensic look at focus and flow.
Manage your environment so it is less distracting, work with your natural bio rhythms, find balance with different kinds of attention, ‘mindless’ rote activity can help reset the nervous system, Tik Tok can make you laugh and feel good.
My recommendation is to read Steven Kotler’s the Art of the Impossible for a more detailed and forensic look at focus and flow.
July 16, 2024
Attention Span, funnily enough, struggled to keep my attention at many points. It's a fine book, but has some shortcomings. Broadly, it's separated into three parts. First, Gloria Mark goes over what exactly attention is from a scientific point of view, the different types of attention, and how your brain works to keep it. The second part is almost entirely about the effect of the Information Age on our attention. It turns out having the breadth of human knowledge at our fingertips has some downsides. Finally, the last part is an attempt at some advice on reducing distractions.
This book is a great overview of Dr. Mark's work on attention and/or human behavior. In that regard, I enjoyed it. She is obviously an expert in her field and that shows in her writing. The ability to explain your work to a layman is an often underappreciated skill and she certainly has it. In particular, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the cognitive cost of repelling distraction because I had never really thought about it before. Most people would say that it's common sense that multiple interruptions drain your brain power. However, it turns out that even maintaining your mental shield to block out distractions employs a significant amount of cognitive resources. So even the potential of distractions occurring reduces your focus. This ties into the second part of the book about technology's effect on our focus (and happiness). Multiple times she references an experiment focused on delayed gratification where children sat in a room with a marshmallow and were told to wait some time before they ate it. Dr. Mark's point is that with all of our technology we are basically sitting in a room with a hundred marshmallows around the clock. She also heavily discusses how businesses and corporations feed off of this. It's in their best interest to keep us glued to our screens, so that adds another layer that we need to shield against in order to resist distractions.
Part III of the book does leave more to be desired. She gives some tips and tricks to avoiding distraction but it's really just some methods that have worked for her. It's much less scientific than the previous two parts. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that, but it just doesn't seem to have the same effort as the other parts. I wonder if this was a last minute addition in order to market the book more from the self help angle. She does have some nice insights, like working in the rhythm of your attention's natural tides, or the importance of our own agency in refraining from our devices. However, it's not enough to justify an entire new section of the book. Another nitpick that stood out was this almost mechanical process of weaving little stories about herself into the chapters. Once again, I wonder if an editor or publisher gave some feedback that it wasn't personal enough and so she put these in the book. Unfortunately, it just seems clunky and mostly unnecessary.
Overall, I can't say that I immensely enjoyed reading it, but I don't regret reading it either. If I could go back in time, I would simply tell myself to stop reading after chapter eight (even though my past self would ignore that advice anyway).
This book is a great overview of Dr. Mark's work on attention and/or human behavior. In that regard, I enjoyed it. She is obviously an expert in her field and that shows in her writing. The ability to explain your work to a layman is an often underappreciated skill and she certainly has it. In particular, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the cognitive cost of repelling distraction because I had never really thought about it before. Most people would say that it's common sense that multiple interruptions drain your brain power. However, it turns out that even maintaining your mental shield to block out distractions employs a significant amount of cognitive resources. So even the potential of distractions occurring reduces your focus. This ties into the second part of the book about technology's effect on our focus (and happiness). Multiple times she references an experiment focused on delayed gratification where children sat in a room with a marshmallow and were told to wait some time before they ate it. Dr. Mark's point is that with all of our technology we are basically sitting in a room with a hundred marshmallows around the clock. She also heavily discusses how businesses and corporations feed off of this. It's in their best interest to keep us glued to our screens, so that adds another layer that we need to shield against in order to resist distractions.
Part III of the book does leave more to be desired. She gives some tips and tricks to avoiding distraction but it's really just some methods that have worked for her. It's much less scientific than the previous two parts. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that, but it just doesn't seem to have the same effort as the other parts. I wonder if this was a last minute addition in order to market the book more from the self help angle. She does have some nice insights, like working in the rhythm of your attention's natural tides, or the importance of our own agency in refraining from our devices. However, it's not enough to justify an entire new section of the book. Another nitpick that stood out was this almost mechanical process of weaving little stories about herself into the chapters. Once again, I wonder if an editor or publisher gave some feedback that it wasn't personal enough and so she put these in the book. Unfortunately, it just seems clunky and mostly unnecessary.
Overall, I can't say that I immensely enjoyed reading it, but I don't regret reading it either. If I could go back in time, I would simply tell myself to stop reading after chapter eight (even though my past self would ignore that advice anyway).
January 27, 2024
An exploration of how human attention works, how technology and culture have shaped and changed it, and with guidance on how to gain some degree of agency over one's own attention. This is a topic I've reflected on a good amount over the past year or two and towards which I hope to devote a reasonable amount of effort and focus this year. There were many things that were familiar to me from prior reading & research, but packaged well, and with insights that plumbed new areas.
A few key takeaways:
1) The first step (and perhaps main step) towards a more attentive life is awareness - being aware of one's own mental peaks during the day, of the things that pull one's attention away, of things that are draining and things that are restorative.
2) The goal is not to work with deep focus all day every day; that's humanly impossible. We have a limited amount of cognitive focus which is spent on deep work but ALSO spent on preventing moving to distractions. There is value in rote, simple distractions to "refill the tank" but the danger is when they go on for far too long - hence the value of hooks: timers, scheduling a meeting afterwards, etc.
3) Our devices & notifications & emails do distract us...but we're just as guilty of distracting ourselves. Our own internal stimuli of distractions emerge when we drain our tanks or focus too hard without appropriate balance; all the website blockers in the world won't let you focus on one thing forever all day every day.
This is all written much more eloquently and with substantial citations of research to back it up. I'd recommend to anyone who feels their distractions, particularly in the digital space, feel out of their control, for some context and encouraging next steps.
A few key takeaways:
1) The first step (and perhaps main step) towards a more attentive life is awareness - being aware of one's own mental peaks during the day, of the things that pull one's attention away, of things that are draining and things that are restorative.
2) The goal is not to work with deep focus all day every day; that's humanly impossible. We have a limited amount of cognitive focus which is spent on deep work but ALSO spent on preventing moving to distractions. There is value in rote, simple distractions to "refill the tank" but the danger is when they go on for far too long - hence the value of hooks: timers, scheduling a meeting afterwards, etc.
3) Our devices & notifications & emails do distract us...but we're just as guilty of distracting ourselves. Our own internal stimuli of distractions emerge when we drain our tanks or focus too hard without appropriate balance; all the website blockers in the world won't let you focus on one thing forever all day every day.
This is all written much more eloquently and with substantial citations of research to back it up. I'd recommend to anyone who feels their distractions, particularly in the digital space, feel out of their control, for some context and encouraging next steps.
June 30, 2023
At first glance Attention Span is a book about achieving focus in the face of the distractions that our digital lives put in front of us. Unlike other takes on this subject Gloria Mark doesn’t just say social media is evil. She puts our capacity for focus and distraction in a larger context, explaining all the things that help us lose focus and all the things we can do to take control. The problem isn’t simply lack of will power or “the algorithm”. Each plays a part in distraction. And it’s not just our devices that distract us. And distraction isn’t always bad.
Some insights:
• Flow is useful, but hard to achieve, and being focused and productive all the time can be draining and thus counter productive.
• Rote activity like games, social media, taking a walk, or gardening recharge you.
• Social media can distract but can also help build relationships and add value.
• Learning to practice self- awareness is your best, most sustainable approach to not getting sucked into a time wasting trap.
Attention Span has information to help you manage your cognitive energy and find the balance between rite distraction and productivity. This is worth a read if you are trying to get a handle on how you can get the focus you need to get the important things done while also getting a balanced amount of recharge time.
Some insights:
• Flow is useful, but hard to achieve, and being focused and productive all the time can be draining and thus counter productive.
• Rote activity like games, social media, taking a walk, or gardening recharge you.
• Social media can distract but can also help build relationships and add value.
• Learning to practice self- awareness is your best, most sustainable approach to not getting sucked into a time wasting trap.
Attention Span has information to help you manage your cognitive energy and find the balance between rite distraction and productivity. This is worth a read if you are trying to get a handle on how you can get the focus you need to get the important things done while also getting a balanced amount of recharge time.
November 17, 2025
I’m currently rewiring my relationship with my phone and social media for my mental health. This book is exactly what I was looking for to help me on my journey. The science and research is thorough and dives deep into every corner you can imagine. I recommend this for people who want to understand how the digital world is impacting our daily lives. The insight on multitasking and stress and how it affects our brains was really eye opening. 5 stars because the author went really in depth into specific problems (moods, productivity, disruption of attention) and I think people can learn from this book! Protect your brain! 🩷
July 1, 2024
A very well researched book on the ways that technology impacts us and our attention. Some scary stuff in here, but it's not all doom and gloom. Mark also notes positive aspects of technology and I appreciate the emphasis on well being over productivity throughout. I'll say some of the advice she offers about how to break free from technology and its impacts on our attention seemed a bit superficial and unhelpful. But identifying the problem is a good starting point
September 23, 2023
Overall a good book to skim, has some interesting and new research on attention and how it connects with technology like the phone. It’s helpful to me because it helped me realize that it’s OK to feel distracted and the don’t always have to get an estate sell to get things done and everybody has ebbs and flows with attention.
January 7, 2024
It took me forever to finish this book - which likely says a lot about out my attention span - but it was overall enjoyable with some good insights into how to take control of your attention. I will be trying a few of them next week. I also like that Mark’s suggestions are pragmatic and NOT “just stop using your devices.”
February 19, 2023
"Groundbreaking" might be an oversell. This was interesting but SELF-HELP BOOKS CANNOT MAKE YOU HAPPY.
April 10, 2023
4.5 stars. This was my favorite non fiction book I’ve read in a while! Up to date information, relatable content, and fascinating writing. I want to buy this one for my shelf! Super helpful.
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April 4, 2024Audio
April 1, 2025
Had to reread a chapter in the middle, because I was scrolling on my phone smh 🙄
April 4, 2025
Ironically failed to entirely capture my attention and I struggled through the final chapters
January 31, 2025
Dewey 153.733
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